Saturday, May 8, 2010

Weekend Retro Rewind | Van Halen Hot For Teacher

"Sit Down, Waldo!" was one of my favorite catch phrases of 1984. Why? Because of this hot, steamy MTV video for Van Halen's Hot For Teacher. Now, truth be told, I'm far from a fan of this type of music today. I've never been into rocker bands or hair bands. I always thought those bands were like, "for boys."

However, when you're 11 and don't have any hip older brothers or sisters guiding your musical taste, you're screwed. This is why I tried to rescue my brother's bad taste by forcing The Smiths and Depeche Mode on him at an early age. Didn't work. He preferred Pantera, Metallica and Samhaim to my dark, depressing ballads from the UK.

As you know, I attended Catholic school between grades 3-8. I must confess, this video was shocking. It truly was. The level of filth, I'm serious. I loved the song, but there was something that made me feel nervous while watching this video. I would turn my head around like Linda Blair in The Exorcist to make sure my parents weren't around every time it aired. In my mind, it was a straight-up porno on regular TV.

1. The voice of Waldo is actually that of the late SNL comedian Phil Hartman.
2. David Lee Roth directed the "Hot For Teacher" video.
3. Eddie Van Halen's solo was ranked by Guitar World as #46 of all-time.
4. Fans sometimes think the line "I don't feel tardy" is "I don't feel dirty" but it is indeed "tardy."
5. There is some crazy confusion as to which hot chick played the hot teacher. Some say it's Lillian Muller, while others say it's Wayne Gretzky's wife, Janet Jones. I bet our favorite dirty boy blogger, Copyboy, would know. Ha ha!

19 comments:

Funny...I had not even heard of this song!I was never a huge Van Halen fan, although I do like much of their music. When I was a kid in West Covina, California, they used to hang out at the same music store that I did...good old Hanich Music. I never ran into them though. I put a post on the community bulletin board as a drummer available. If the stars had been aligned differently and they saw my ad, I might have been their drummer.

So true! And although I also tried to guide my younger bro (who had been to about 40 concerts by age 17 and already had residual hearing loss from the shows), he also listened to Pantera. Sad, I know...

So funny about the controversy of who played the teacher. I mean, is she still alive and does she remember doing it? Stand up and be counted, woman!

Also, this reminds me of seeing purple rain on cinemax by sneaking up in the middle of the night when a much "faster" friend was sleeping over. I was downright flabbergasted at that one "sex" scene which didn't even include any nudity. And my first graders today are way more advanced and less naive in their development than I was in fourth grade! Crazy world.

I am glad I had a cool cousin who introduced me to cool music like Sabbath and Zeppelin which lead to my obsession with Alice in Chains. But I got told too that that was "Boy" music. I was like "WTF?" But my friends liked New Kids on the Block...

I didn't like Depeche Mode and the Smiths back then...but now I do...what amazing musicianship! The Cure too!

I totally understand why, as a Catholic school girl, you did the Exorcist head turn when watching this. As a Jewish adult, I almost did it too just now. But I remembered that I live alone, and I did lock the door. I wonder how little Waldo turned out. Do you know who he is?Thanks for another fun post, Ally.xoRobyn

I had no idea that was Phil Hartman.... He was such a genius.... Every teenage boy that I knew loved this song.... I had a friend in a lame band in junior high and they could play 'Hot For Teacher' and two other songs (poorly)....